Making modernism pay : conflict, creativity and cooperation between British writers and commercial publishers 1910-1930

• Main Author: Kirkpatrick, Christabel Pamela
• Published: Royal Holloway, University of London 2008
• Subjects: 808.80112
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.500017

This dissertation looks at the changing relationship between modernist writers and commercial publishers during the high modernist period. It explores the ways in which commercial publishers became involved in modernism, the reasons they did so, and how some managed to make money from a movement that their readers knew to be difficult. It does this with a view to finding out more about modernism's relationship with the mainstream - commercial publishers and their readers. Why is there a need for this type of study? A significant amount of research has looked at the ways in which modernist writers reached elite readerships. More recently, a number of studies have focused on modernist writers' relationship with mass culture, showing that they interacted with it in a number of ways, including borrowing publicity strategies, entering into dialogue with popular writers through the pages of literary magazines and interacting with new media. However, there has not yet been a broad review on the way in which modernism was developed and disseminated for that mainstream audience. This dissertation considers how the strategies and business decisions of mainstream commercial publishers impeded or accelerated the development of modernism in the . context of the rapidly changing economic, social and cultural conditions during the period of high modernism. It shows how the Great War dramatically changed publishing conditions, leading a wide range of writers, publishers, translators and readers to collaborate and co-operate to help bring modernism to the mainstream. It also explores how commercial publishers found ways of making the movement pay - as well as how, and if, these commercial aims could be reconciled with modernist writers' literary ideals. The dissertation is divided into two parts.